My experiences of systemic racism and sexism at Pixar
Trigger warning: Mental health, PTSD, imagery of dead Afghan civilians
I’ve wanted to write about this for years, but it is really difficult to write about this stuff for many reasons. Being forced to re-live the traumas and the need to heal and and move on. The risk of negative impact on one’s career and legal repercussions, when it is already hard enough being a vocal brown Muslim woman in the work place. But thankfully, I am finding courage as I see people from marginalized identities come forward about their experiences of racism at the companies they have worked at — the very same companies that are now trying to erase their complicity in systemic racism through performative actions in support of Black Lives Matter.
The murders of Black and Brown people by Police in the Bay Area are not new. Pixar is located in the town of Emeryville, which is adjacent to Berkeley and Oakland. Many of my mostly white co-workers lived in Oakland’s formerly predominantly Black neighborhoods that got gentrified, and where the use of Police to criminalize and murder Black lives is rampant and has gotten international publicity. It takes willful ignorance to not be aware of these issues when you live and work in the Bay Area.
Pixar had a politics email group where employees would share political views ranging from liberal to right wing. Co-workers would also discuss everything, politics included, at the lunch table or the employee sponsored happy hours at the on-site bars. The types of political views that came up were often racist, classist, xenophobic and problematic. I was naive back then and thought if I informed what I perceived as ignorant but well-meaning liberals about systemic racism, class oppression, police brutality, etc they would start to understand and care. When I would attempt to discuss the daily anti-black violence of police and the gentrification induced displacement of predominantly poor and working class Black people in the neighborhoods we worked and lived in, the movement against police brutality after the murder of Oscar Grant by OPD, and its eventual leading up to the Occupy Oakland uprising, the struggles of Indigenous People’s land rights including the Emeryville Shellmound, a sacred burial site of the Ohlone people, the responses I would get from my mostly white co-workers ranged from “Well we would not have all the good things you see around you if things did not happen the way they did” to “I am concerned about property values” to “I don’t see a problem, things are working great for me” (yes these were actual responses from my co-workers). Additionally, my co-workers were generally not in favor of the Police brutality protests and the Occupy Oakland uprising going on, movements that I was involved in and was hoping my privileged mostly white co-workers would understand and support.
When Alan Blueford, another young Black man got murdered by OPD, and I shared my thoughts on it in the politics email group, the response from a white male co-worker was pull-yourself-by-the-bootstraps racism in favor of police and definitely not in favor of defending Black lives. No one checked him. My co-workers at Pixar with immense class and race privilege were not willing to accept that there were major problems of systemic racism and oppression going on all around us, in the very neighborhoods we resided in and the ones getting gentrified because of us. The more I tried to share about these systemic issues, the more isolated I became. And eventually I became a target, got put on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) and fired.
Below are incidents rooted in racism and sexism during my time at Pixar.
At the lunch table one day, a white woman in a senior technical role, made racist comments in front of me by saying Asians were stingy with money and liked to hoard. Perhaps it was the shock on my face that got her to pause when she said “Don’t you dare say I am racist, I am married to an Asian man so I can say what I want about this”. I spoke up and said that it was still racist to say so. After that she would not acknowledge me or talk to me any more. I was a junior, she was a senior who had been there for years, and I knew I was going to take a hit for that one. So after some time passed by, I stopped by her office and tried to make amends, but she would not make eye contact let alone acknowledge that I was standing there trying to talk to her. Of course, there was never going to be an acknowledgement that her comments were indeed racist. I wondered how her husband who also worked there might feel if he were to find out that she made racist comments about him and his family.
Pixar had a mailing group for ride sharing. One day I emailed asking for a ride home. M who was a senior engineer stopped by my cubicle telling me he was available to give me a ride. I accepted a ride from him, my home was only 10 minutes away. After he parked his car outside my residence, he reached out and started groping my upper thigh, I was horrified. I unbuckled my seat belt, grabbed my belongings and bolted out the car door as fast as I could. I waited for months before finding the courage to ask for a ride again on the ride sharing email group. As soon as I sent my email, M stopped by my cubicle again and told me that I should always ask him for a ride and that I did not need to ask on the mailing group. He would also insist that I confide in him if I was ever “stressed out”, this was during the time I was being treated poorly by my manager. I felt humiliated, vulnerable and unable to tell him to fuck off. I wanted to report him to HR but knew HR was not going to be supportive. Years later, my assumptions about the company culture and HR were validated when the rampant culture of sexual harassment at Pixar became publicly known.
During team lunches, a white hipster who also worked in the tech side of things, would objectify women, discuss their appearances and his sexual encounters with women, all of which made me feel really uncomfortable. So one day, I said he was sexist. He pulled me into his office and warned me to never say that again. I felt scared and unable to defend myself, and pressured to apologize against my will.
On another occasion, a white male who was a senior in my team, made sure to let me know that he had a problem with Muslims because, he felt when acts of terror happened, Muslims stayed silent and did not condemn it enough. I wonder if he condemns the police murder of Black lives each time it happens. Most likely not.
When war criminal Sergeant Bales murdered 16 Afghan civilians in the most horrific ways, the head of Disney immediately sent an email out to all employees including Pixar, saying how they support the troops and veterans, there was no mention or condemnation of this horrific act of terror that had made the world news. I would not put it past these CEOs and executives to send Blue Lives Matter emails immediately after the murder of Black human beings by police, if they could get away with it. The trauma of all this is too much for me to even write about. I broke down and cried at my desk, my manager’s manager seemed empathetic as she listened to me breaking down, but then said “maybe this is not really the place for you to work at”.
While there were women in leadership positions at Pixar, they were overwhelmingly white. Despite the Bay Area being a really diverse place, the majority of Pixar employees on campus were overwhelmingly white as well, the majority of people on the tech side of things where I worked were also overwhelmingly white, and everyone on my immediate team was cis-male and white. The few Black people on campus I would see worked at the cafeteria, shipping room or security. Out of 1200 employees at the time, only a handful were Black. There were a few more South and East Asians.
When a position opened up for an Executive Assistant for D, a white woman who is a producer and Hollywood celebrity, I immediately sent the job req to a highly qualified friend of mine, who is a Black woman. We went to Film School together, and she had years of experience working with big name stars in Hollywood. Pixar seemed thrilled about my friend and hired her. Little did I know that I had recommended my friend for a position where she would be subjected to daily abuse, micro-aggressions and racism. During sessions where D would berate and humiliate my friend, she told my friend that she was “not subservient enough”. The fact that D expected Black women to be “subservient” and said that is RACIST and unacceptable! Other micro-aggressions by D included telling my Black friend that she was “too confident” and “egalitarian”. D fired my friend after 6 months of working for her.
Both my friend and I were made to sign non-disclosure severance packages, which was basically 2 months of pay, which we each desperately needed at the time. Hence why it has taken me years to find the courage and strength to finally speak up. If Pixar and it’s legal team come after me, I will make sure to post about that as well. I regret not having the strength or power to stand up for my Black friend and call out D at the time.
And now I will share my PIP story.
I became pregnant towards the tail end of Occupy Oakland. Somewhere around this time, my manager pulled me into his office and shared some concerns about my “productivity” and my interactions with co-workers. My fear of being targeted for speaking out had become a reality. I was feeling vulnerable so I told him I was pregnant and that I will try to do better. After that, my manager and team mates would exclude me from meetings and when I would ask why, they would make excuses by saying that since I was going to be out on leave for a long time they did not think it was necessary to invite me. I found that troubling because unlike the common pattern of taking 6 months or more off by many of my more privileged co-workers who became parents at Pixar, I knew I did not have the luxury of taking more time off than the paid amount of 2–3 months.
I returned to work as soon as my maternity leave was over. My manager put me on a PIP shortly after.
At the time I had no idea what this really meant. My health was in decline, I was exhausted from being a new mom with a 3 month old infant, and instead of being eased back into work like many of my other co-workers, I now had extra requirements, pressures and goals to achieve beyond what I was capable of at the time. In contrast, a white female co-worker who became a mom around the same time and who’s husband also worked there, was eased back into work with part time hours and she was able to keep her job and still works there.
My health was rapidly declining, I was in constant chronic pain as I stayed up late, sleep deprived and trying to learn new things while nursing my infant. As is common with retaliating managers who use PIPs to get rid of employees they don’t like, every step I took to improve my situation was further used against me. When I tried to learn new systems or technology and asked questions from other co-workers with more expertise, he used that against me. He warned me to not ask other co-workers for help. One of the requirements in the PIP was to sign up for a class to learn a new skill. So I signed up for a remote object oriented programming course, and I was failing at it because I really did not have the capacity to do well at this time. I had no choice but to drop out. When I informed my manager of this he was furious. He would tell me that people came to him and complained about me, but when I would ask for transparency, so I could own any mistakes and improve, he would refuse to share the content of the complaints. This made me feel even more anxious and stressed out, and unable to perform well.
During this time, there was one white woman engineer who supported me and helped me learn new coding skills. She would lend me her books and help me when I would get stuck on a problem. She would emphasize my strengths to me, encourage me and tell me she had faith in me and that I could do it. She would tell me that what they were doing to me was wrong and unfair. I would like to thank her for being a good friend and ally.
Due to all the stress and fatigue, I was also struggling to keep my milk supply up. As every move I made was being watched by my manager, I was in fear of the increased time it was taking me to produce enough milk for my baby when I would go to the mother’s lounge to pump. This is still very difficult for me to write about. I felt shame and humiliation every step of the way. Finally, I was seen by both a Psychiatrist and a Rheumatologist, and they diagnosed me with Postpartum Depression and Fibromyalgia among other things. They requested I be put on disability for 8 weeks to recover and then go back to work. So after 5 weeks of being on the PIP, I went on disability for 8 weeks. I was also put on an SNRI. The medication reduced the symptoms of Fibromyalgia, and I was almost pain free. After a day of being at home, my milk supply returned immediately as well. I was able to feed my infant who was refusing to take the bottle, for which I was immensely grateful.
I had to return back to work when the 8 weeks of disability were over. As soon as I returned, my manager let me know that the remaining 3 weeks of the PIP was resuming. Having to push myself beyond my capacity at a time when I needed understanding and compassion from my manager, all while knowing that no matter how hard I tried I was bound to fail — all this caused my health to decline again. My Fibromyalgia pain returned, so my doctor increased my medication dose, and I started experiencing negative side effects such as my gums bleeding due to severe dryness of skin and mouth. By the time my manager invited me to the room to fire me at the end of the PIP, I was more than ready to leave Pixar. I had had enough of the inhumane mistreatment and daily humiliation. I needed space to breath, recover and heal. Working at Pixar while being a new mom and a woman of color was so toxic that it was literally making me sick.
After I lost my job at Pixar, I also lost my health insurance at a time I needed it most. I had to cut the SNRI cold turkey, and it took months to recover from the brain zaps and severe depression that followed. My life was turned upside down, it took years to recover in my career.
My fibro pain, ptsd, stress and anxiety levels, etc are kicking up as I re-live the trauma by writing this, I am trying not to break down and cry, this shit is triggering even after 8 years. This is how a white supremacist, capitalist, hetero-patriarchal, ableist systems of oppression inflict daily violence on our mental and physical health. I don’t want to feel this way but I have to share my truth so other women, especially women of color know they are not alone. We deserve our humanity and dignity to be kept in tact. Especially at the work place.
I have since learned enough about PIPs in articles and personal accounts shared in women’s tech groups I’ve been a part of, to know how it is a tool used to retaliate against, punish, and discard employees from marginalized identities, and that using PIPs to discard new moms returning to work is fairly common as well. I have no doubt in my mind that my being a vocal Brown Muslim woman who spoke about systemic racism, police brutality, gentrification, when co-workers expressed their racist, sexist and classist views — my being an activist who was on national media for documenting the night that a highly militarized police force raided the Occupy Oakland camp, while deploying tear gas on protestors — and my being an Afghan Muslim woman who questioned the motivations behind Disney leadership sending a company wide pro US military email immediately after a gruesome war crime — all of these things played a role in my being targeted at work.
Despite the current wave of support at the corporate workplace for Black Lives Matter, I worry again about being targeted at the workplace if I speak out too much on racism or police abolition, if I say too many things in favor of the uprisings in response to George Floyd’s murder by police, or if I stand up too much for my fellow co-workers. Unfortunately, like many activists, I have to be super careful about keeping my political work hidden and separate from my job and co-workers. PIPs exist at other companies I’ve worked at and have been used against Black and Brown women engineers to punish and fire them. In fact, what finally gave me the courage and a path forward to write about my experiences at Pixar was the fact that several women of color have published their stories of systemic racism and sexism on Medium. The truth is, we need to dismantle systemic oppression at the work place just as much as outside of the work place. As workers are pit against one another under a capitalist system, which functions along with racism, sexism and other form of systemic oppression, we need to realize that our power is in our ability to organize and be in solidarity with one another.
